Threads
by Cardwitch
Summary: Ryuji and Reiko's departed spirits take a moment to reflect on their lost lives...
1. Confessions

This is a three-part story with three different stories. It's from the point of view from the three main leads from the original Japanese version: Ryuji, Reiko and Yoichi.

**Confessions  
**Ryuji explains why he is the way he is, stubborn, wooden, hollow and cold. You might finally get an idea of his history, and what's really going on with him.

**Nostalgia  
**What is going through Reiko's mind in the last days of her life? Finally the question that people have wondered about is answered… What did she see before her death?

**Mystical  
**The story from beginning to end! Yoichi guides you through his life from the very start to the point he stands now. The little hero finally takes the stage…

Each chapter is different and special to each other characters. In this story, I will try my best to explain once and for all, the secrets behind the family and their real relationship with the murderous Sadako Yamamura.

Now I don't own the 'Ring', so don't sue me! I'm not sure who owns it right now, but the original author Koji Suzuki must still hold some rights, and the Ace Inc. and the Koreans own a little tiny bit, and the yankie-doodles. So, there we go, everyone has a little piece of the Ring.

* * *

_One of the strangest men ever to be born, and he was my father. I was the son of a man who ran from everything that scared him..._

_Though I wasn't sure at the time… I felt him go. His life just slipped away and I knew in my heart… He was gone forever. My own father was dead. The man who despite his leaving me, making me believe that I had done him wrong, I loved him… very much._

'_As quoted by Yoichi…'_

**Confessions**

_Don't judge me yet!_

_Not until you understand…_

_My confession!_

You probably wonder why I'm like the way I am? Well, I sometimes wonder myself. After all, I have never expressed a reason for why I am me… Most of you probably already have an image or opinion on me, am I right?

Heartless, cold, wooden, hollow and most likely to be on your mind… 'cruel'.

But in truth, that's really only the skin deep me part of me. In truth, I never let my real feelings show, for if I were to show my feelings to people, I don't think they would look on me as Ryuji any more. I couldn't be the strong, emotionless and brave man that my friends know me as, and I'd become this coward, whom has nothing but the past on my mind…

I've decided to confess to everything, to tell you what I'm really thinking and what I really feel. Seeing as I'm not a man to pour his heart out in a diary, to a friend or anyone… I've decided to tell you all, up front and ready for anyone to read and tell to the rest of the world.

Now, personally, I'm not too fond of myself either. Hell if I were you I wouldn't want to know me either, so don't feel bad about hating me. It's not like I didn't have it coming. These days, not many men are loved when they ran out on their family for reasons never explained.

No, in truth there was a reason… 

I hated that reason and if I had a choice, I would have ignored it. This wasn't something that could be ignored though. In fact, it's almost impossible to ignore it all. It's like those things that always come back to get you some how.

When I sit in the middle of the park, or even in my classroom before my students, I can feel them all thinking that I'm different. When I'm sitting in the town and I catch the eye of Takano, the first thing she'd always think was how weird I was. All my life I had always caught the eyes of people, who pass me, the thing they always think is… 'Weirdo' or 'Abnormal' or even sometimes – 'Freak'.

_There was only one person in the whole world that didn't think I was different…_

Asakawa Reiko till this day remains the only woman (and only person) who ever looked at me and thought me just like everyone. Till this day, she remains the only woman I know who naturally accounted powers like my own. Till this very day, she remains the only woman whom I have ever truly loved…

And still do… 

How long have I known her? Longer then most of you will think. Ever since she was very little, I'd known her. Growing up, the Asakawa family was our neighbour. She's the only one who ever said I was a perfectly normal person. Even my best friend thought I was strange… I was quite friendly with Asakawa Junichirou, the only son of the Asakawas. He was the one who was closest to my age, though I think I was a little younger then him. Ever since I was eight I played with him and his sisters- Ryomi and Shizu. Back then, Reiko wasn't even born. Is that a little disgusting to some people, to stand here and say that a man knew life before his ex-wife was even in the world?

It's been like that since I was really young, being called a weirdo. My mother and I were the weirdo two of the neighbourhood, the only protection we had was my father. Whenever my mother walked down the street, people would stop and stare at her. They always whispered about her behind her back, when they thought she wasn't listening. They called her 'the witch'.

Everyone knew that I would be just like her, and would have strange powers too. However, growing up, I was never picked on because of my powers. As a matter of fact, the kids called me 'the seer'. They'd ask me to tell them what their future would be like. I'd tell them some parts that I thought they might like to know, like if they would get a good grade on their tests or something.

I never told them how their life would turn out though. I didn't feel it was right to tamper with other people's future. It seems that, once you know how you future will be, you'll try anything to achieve it, and then it never happens, because you were expecting it. It's like if I told you to 'not worry' about a vase you're about to break, and then you knock it over while looking for it. Then later, the question that will really get you is… Would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?

It's the same with the future, if you know here someone's life might end up, it's better not to tell them, or to tell them in a riddle or something. To temper with the future might end up hurting people in the present. That's what my mother used to tell me.

"However" she used to say to me, "you will never be able to read someone you knows whole future. That's because you can't read your own future. Only other peoples are clear to read, but it's impossible to know what your own life will end up like…"

I always remembered her lesions to me about my powers. The people around us began to accept us for what we were. My mother has only ever been friends with Naomi Asakawa, and made prediction about her children, Naomi was always excited about reading her children's future. It was only when the youngest of four was born that she started to be 'weary' of my mother. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that the prediction about the girl wasn't good…

_And who am I? Calling her, the girl. Her name's Asakawa… No, her name is Reiko…_

It was around this time that she fell out with her other best friend, my adopted grandmother, Ai-sama. We used to always meet with Ai-sama, but one day my mother went alone. After she came back, she seemed a different person. I was never close with my father, but I felt a true part of my mother and I wanted to help her. But she seemed to ignore me. She'd walk about in circles, muttering to herself about what the future would be like. There where times she and father would row about something or other and I'd sit in my room, listening to every word said. I'd wake in the middle of the night and hear my mother weeping in the night…

It was one day, I was about thirteen at the time. Yes, it had just been my birthday about a week before hand. It was Reiko's birthday today. I'll remember anything about that day. Everything there is to remember other then what happened.

I woke up and got ready to go off to school. I always walked with Junichirou, after all he was my only friend. I said goodbye to father who left for work early, and I said goodbye to mother. She just smiled. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide. She still smiled at me and hugged me goodbye. And I left for school…

I remember that day so well. I had maths first, which was always a great way for me to start the day. After that we had a Japanese lesion, we were learning how to write with creativity. Then there was science, then history… Then lunch of course… Then we had another maths lesion and finally it was art lesion.

I walked home with Junichirou Asakawa again and we talked about the normal stuff you do at that age. It wasn't until we got to our neighbourhood that I felt something very strange going on. I tried to shake it off. It was nothing. Then, just as we normally part ways between the two houses, I noticed someone sitting in the driveway of my home.

It was Reiko…

"What's she doing there?" Junichirou said when he noticed her too. We walked up towards her. She was hunched up and her chin was buried in her arms and her big dark eyes staring at us. It was rather sweet, but she looked scared and I didn't like it. When we got to her she didn't even move. Junichirou snapped a little at her, "Hey swart! What are you doing here? Mum's going to be furious if she finds you here. You know you're not allowed away from the house without her!"

She didn't answer, she just looked up a little towards him. A part inside me at the time thought how sad it was for her to have Junichirou as her big brother. What made it worse was that she had two older sisters. Only Ryomi ever took care of her, Shizu on the other hand, treated her rather badly…

"Short fry!" Junichirou mocked at her again,

"I'm not!" Reiko finally replied in a muffled voice, "I was waiting for you and Takayama-kun to come back!"

I didn't understand. I don't think Junichirou did either. He just kept asking her where their mother was. Our wonders were answered when Naomi's voice came ringing out from behind us… She called out to Reiko in a harsh voice. Reiko quickly stood up. There was dust and marks all down her pretty black tights and blue dress. Her white coat wasn't even white anymore.

"Reiko!" Naomi snapped angrily, she came up to Reiko and gave her a small slap around the face. I looked away, expecting her to cry, but she didn't she just back away a little into the gate. "How dare you run off like that! I was worried sick!"

"What happened, mum?"

"We were walking around to the school, to catch Shizu as she comes out. We get to the crossing, I turn to get her hand to cross and she's gone. I was frantic! I didn't know what to think!" she said almost crying. Junichirou took his mother's hand and turned to glare at Reiko.

Reiko backed a little more into the gate. I could see that this was not normal for her, she'd done this for a reason. Junichirou yelled at her, "You selfish girl! How dare you scare mother like that? You're a selfish, selfish little girl! Never, never ever do that again!" I felt strange, I knew that Reiko was trying to get my attention. She kept looking up at me, and seemed to want to back towards my house.

"Take her home, Junichirou!" Naomi ordered, touching her head as if she was trying to hide her great relief. Junichirou reached out and grabbed at Reiko, she dodged first time. Second time, he got hold of her, but Reiko then suddenly grabbed me. I felt a sudden rush of horror and fear rush through me. She clutched to me, with her small hand and rapped her legs around my leg. "Reiko!" her mother snapped, "I'm telling you! If you don't behave right now… I swear that when daddy gets back, you'll be hit!"

But she wouldn't let go, she looked up to me, pleadingly, "No! No! No!" she kept crying, "Takayama-kun!"

Junichirou then let her go and like a tiger on the prey, Reiko wrapped herself around me and held herself at me. Nothing was prying her away from me. She really was trying to tell me something. But being so young, no one would believe her, or understand her as she did not yet know the words to describe it all. Her mind was saying, _Takayama-kun, Takayama-kun… Please don't go home alone!_

"I'll look after her for a little while!" I suddenly said, "Just until she calms down…"

Reiko then looked towards her mother, as if she wanted her to come to. Something was terribly wrong… Naomi nodded, "I'll come in too… I wanted to see Hiroko anyway".

As I entered my house, something was wrong. I felt like the house was cold, and empty, like there was something wrong with it. I was carrying Reiko in my arms. All of a sudden she started kicking and wanting to be put down. I put her down and she just stood there. She took a look around and walked towards the kitchen. She placed her hands on the sliding door. She then drooped then suddenly and started weeping and crying. I went towards her and took her hand. I then placed my hand to open the door. It wasn't Reiko's crying that put me off. It was the fear… I knew what was behind this door and I dreaded it more then anything…

I knew what was wrong…

This was why Reiko ran away…

I had to open it… I slid the door open quickly…

I fell to the floor in shock and pulled Reiko to look away. If she fully saw what was hanging there, it would give her nightmares for the rest of her life…

My father wanted us to move, but I didn't want to leave the area, this was still my home and I wanted to stay here for all of my childhood. I also wanted to watch over Junichirou's little sister. She didn't have any one else, and something had driven her to my mother that day. I needed to watch her, to see if it was possible that she had it too…

It didn't matter… I never seemed to notice her. I tried not to, maybe a part of me feared that I would be lead to something else like that. I do remember what she was like. When I remember the young Reiko, I remember the little girl who came to my fourteenth birthday party…

A little three-year-old with black wavy sun-kissed hair in two unequal bunches. The lose pink ribbon around the falling one and the tight and strong bow on the high one. I remember her as she and her sister Ryomi, running across the bridge at the back of the houses. A huge smile on her face as she span around in the floaty pink dress…

When I think about that little girl, I find it hard to believe that she's the same girl whom I fell in love with. Sometimes, I forgot that they were the same girl. It's only when I look at the pictures of me and the four Asakawa children taken over the years, that over those years that the girl in bunches became the girl with her long wavy hair loose. Before I knew it, she was the one who was fourteen…

I was just the twenty-four year old medicine school student who was only there at her party cause Reiko's siblings needed a friend with them. No longer was she this little girl who stood on the top of the table, holding a water bottle and singing nursery rhymes in an un-sounding tone. No, it seemed that over night she had turned from a duck to a swan. She was a teenage girl spinning about on the spot, gracefully and singing like an angel. So many changes she went through, and I forgot the little girl she had once been. She was now the cute and charming younger sister of Junichirou, no longer the baby sister of Junichirou…

_She was neither a girl…_

_Nor a fully grown woman…_

She was a young lady, though just like all young ladies, she hated being told she was one. She hated the attention she got for being the youngest and the last bird to fly the nest. Her glasses, which she'd worn since she was ten were anything but graceful to her cute face. I remember how she had a little clay teddy bear money bank. She told everyone that she was saving for lazier eye surgery…

Then, she got a little older… And that's when her parents called me on. I remember to conversation as if it was yesterday that I was sitting with my father and them, in front of me, explaining their need for help…

They asked me if would her tutor in mathematics. Her maths teacher refused to move her to a class to help her catch up and Reiko had started to feel stupid in her class when she couldn't answer to question she's asked. I'd seen how upset she'd get. I was so willing to help her as much as I could…

I had no idea that I'd do her anything but good… 

It took me a while sometimes to get things into her, but sometimes she'd just get it like that. I found it interesting how quickly she got algebra, when people consider it one of the hardest of all mathematical subjects.

"I have a love-hate relationship with maths" she told me once, "I get these equations here so easily when you tell me them… You're special!"

You're special… 

That was the first time that I had ever been called 'special', and it wouldn't be the last. Over the years, that has been a quote that Reiko had said to me over and over again. Not once did I ever say- thank you.

Am I really special? 

Special was like her… She was someone who was truly special, someone who was good hearted and kind. So what if she didn't know all the maths questions and so what if my equations meant next to nothing to her? It never mattered to me. She was the special one…

"I understand you… I know what it's like to have the sixth sense"

She had always had a certain power about her… Though I could choose to use my power, she be drawn into visions and predict things, minutes maybe seconds before they happened. I knew in my heart that it would be only time before her power would dominate her, but if she chose to… She could grow them, and learn to control them…

Of course, I didn't really care about that at the time… It was on her sixteenth birthday party I thought, _'Defiantly'_…

She was a young woman that day, old enough to marry someone and choose to go on, leaving the rest of her life behind to make a new. Though I can't pin point the moment that I felt myself drawn into her, I knew that on that day that it was real…

Suddenly, the fact that I was older then her didn't matter to me any more. It was like there was no age gap, I truly felt myself falling. I could feel myself falling. When ever I was in her presence… My heart felt like it wasn't mine any more. I once even thought I was having heart attack, but it was just my heart beating so fast that it was no longer beating… It was humming.

At first, I convinced myself that it was only a crush… The rush felt like that of silly little crushes I used to have when I was younger then she was. It's hard to define the difference between a crush and being in love for some people. They say that you just know when you're in love, that's rubbish… Some people never realise and they just hope it'll all go away.

A crush is something you have on a distant person, someone who you've never been close to and never really thought about until suddenly, you gain the crush. Falling in love is different. When you're in love, you see them in your dreams, you're heart skips beats just at the sound of their name and you're emotionally attached to them, as well as physically.

I was almost digested with myself for not being digested when I realised what was wrong with me… I was in love with her and I knew it. I couldn't stop thinking about her, I couldn't sleep and I felt myself longing for her to be around me, but I knew that I couldn't do anything about my feelings. When I was with her, I felt light and warmth and happiness rushing through me, a feeling I never wanted to go away.

And in the end, when I finally got her… I never wanted to let her go, never. I had the need to protect and be there for her through thick and thin. I never wanted to let her go. When I'm with her, I feel right and it all feels natural…

Even today, if you look close enough at me, my eyes still shine with nothing but love in them when I'm with her… She's the only person who ever understood me and the only person who trusts me. There is no one else in the world that trusts me as she does.

Then Yoichi came along… 

So many people think that I must have no feeling for him whatsoever and that I don't care about him. The truth is, I care too much. From the beginning, I knew there was something about Yoichi that made him different. Not only was Reiko only nineteen when she gave birth to him, but there was an aura around Yoichi that worried me.

Whenever I felt something in the room that wasn't human, while Reiko and I would feel it, Yoichi would burst out crying. Like he could it all too. I tried to convince myself that it was nothing but a baby's cries…

_But as Yoichi grew older, it continued._

I still loved him. He was my son and he was my own child. A little part of me was in him, well half of him was me. I found it so hard to believe that a little person who was so small and so little had my genes. He was half me… I did hope however that he wouldn't pick up on the strange power that both his mother and I had.

I was kidding myself to think he wouldn't. It was genetically impossible for him not to me. It's like selective breeding, you choose two people who have great qualities and breed them to see if their child has the same qualities. If the mother and the father have the same ESP, their child will have it and twice as strong.

I decided that we'd explain things to Yoichi when he was much older, if he felt he had powers then we could explain it to him. We decided to try and be as normal as possible. I'd tell myself that I'd never been happier, I had a family who I loved and who loved me back. My son even looked up to me, he'd say I was his hero…

I really was happy…

Then something happened. It's hard to explain but, it was something terrible. I foresaw something… The death of someone had caught my power. That someone was watching me, and wanted me to help them. I could feel them watching us. It was then that I made the full foreseeing and I knew what it wanted…

"If you do not help me, and leave your family… They will suffer. Because of you…" 

I had always been able to see the future, and I knew that I had to be right. For a while, I tried to ignore it. What if this was just my mind playing with me? I wanted to believe that I was wrong. I wanted to believe that my family would never have to face the evil of what I've been told. I could feel the eyes of the person watching me, burning into me as I walked down the street.

I couldn't sleep at night… and when I did sleep, I had nightmares in which she comes and then she puts her bloody and damaged hands around Yoichi's neck and… I knew that it was Yoichi she wanted to kill. She knew I couldn't take the guilt of letting my son die. If Yoichi died, I'd never be able to live myself, and if Reiko died, I know that my heart would break, slowly within me…

_And if I lost both Reiko and Yoichi… _

_If they both died…_

I wouldn't be able to go on living. Even now that goes… If I woke up one morning to be told that they were dead, gone for ever, I couldn't and wouldn't live with the fact that I would never wake up and be able to think 'What are they doing now?' I would wake up every morning of every day and think to myself… 'They're gone forever, I'll never see them again'.

Okay, so I don't see them now. Since Reiko and I surrendered out marriage to protect our son, but at least I can believe that some way, some how, we'd be together again and at least they are there. I know where they are, I'm holding my old phone number now, and Reiko has my new number.

_Free to call at any time. _

I never dare though. What if that woman followed me, and found them again? What if she gets to Yoichi, and kills him before I can try and save him? This is the God's honest truth. If I had a choice, I'd be with my family right now…

You think I like my life now? Going to work everyday to teach the same brainless teenagers and kids, having publishers yelling down my ear, telling me that they want my papers. My only friend a twenty-two year old who keeps changing the board in my living room to try and get my attention… Okay, it was funny. And sure, when you have a friend like her, who needs annoying pupils? Especially when she _is_ an annoying pupil sometimes. In truth, she helped me out, and I helped her in return. She sort of brought a little humour and maybe a few laughs in very utterly dull life, but I only ever thought of her as a friend. Despite what people may think, and despite what she may feel for me...

_I could never go through all of that again. Love's a tough game._

I'm not willing to ever lose it again, so to do so, I'm never going to love again. I'll say alone for the rest of my life, wondering how different things could have been if I'd never made that prediction. How long could we have held up, before we both lost the game, and they really were gone forever…

What would it have been like if I had never fallen in love with her in the first place? What would Asakawa be like today? I am one of the reasons she had to turn down university. After all, she married me when she was seventeen. I got her pregnant at nineteen… If I had left her alone, and never been with her, then Yoichi would never have been born. Sadako wouldn't want to hurt him, Reiko would have been able to do more with her life then I let her… And I'd be with what I deserve. Nothing.

_That's why I'm the way I am…_

Guilt. That's what drives mad today. The wondering of why I let myself do the things I did. Past is past, but the past that I have is my present when it comes to my family. At the time when my past was present, everything I did felt so damn right! I knew that was the place that I wanted to be at…

I guess it doesn't matter any more…

By know, I guess Reiko's moved on by now. There can't be a place in her heart for me any more. I'm the man who ruined her life, the first man who jumped her boat and the man who left her all alone at twenty-four to figure things out for herself. If only she knew what I was thinking when I'm with her. That till this day, she's the woman whom I desire more then oxygen… The only person who I ever loved, and ever want to love.

I ask myself sometimes, is one of the reasons I can't move on... is because I'll never be able to stop loving her? Is that I never want to get over her, because in my heart, I feel like I'm still married to her. I am still married to her in my mind. I've been faithful to her all my life. Between you and me, even before her time, I was rather faithful to whom ever my future spouse would be.

Maybe her feelings for me aren't going with the wind. Maybe they're still there like mine are, and that she, somewhere in her heart, hopes that one day, everything will be okay… And we'll never have to worry about anything again. Maybe her feelings are also kept in a safe place in her heart, where she doesn't want to look at them. That's how she's so strong…

_Never to be felt again…_

Heartless Ryuji… That's my name to all of you, am I right? In the end, I don't blame you. If I'm honest, I am heartless Ryuji. Seeing as, a long time ago… I gave my heart away to the love of my life. My whole heart. And in all honesty…

_I never, ever got it back from her…_

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**Now seeing as I really liked Ryuji, even when it looked like he was a loser... I've really brought up a sad childhood from him and that his only point of happiness was when he made his own family. To have that taken away was terrible, but he did it for them... So, I wanted you understand that from the pained view of Ryuji, he must have had a tuff time with his family to have become what he is.**

**Thanks for reading and please review,**

**Sophie**

_**PS: Chapter Two - Nostalga is on it's way, very very quickly! I'm working on it right now. I'm even working on chapter 3, the final chapter! So, there we go! Please R&R! I loved reviews!**_


	2. Nostalgia

This is a three-part story with three different stories. It's from the point of view from the three main leads from the original Japanese version: Ryuji, Reiko and Yoichi.

What is going through Reiko's mind in the last days of her life? Finally the question that people have wondered about is answered… What did she see before her death? 

Each chapter is different and special to each other characters. In this story, I will try my best to explain once and for all, the secrets behind the family and their real relationship with the murderous Sadako Yamamura.

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_The blood grew towards me, it was bright red and seemed as loose as wine in a cup. For a few seconds, I could her voice in my ears. It was calling my name. I can't remember what it sounded like, was it a sad cry or a happy cry?_

_As Mai and I looked out at the blood, it was like it was alive. Though she couldn't hear the cries of my mother calling, the blood alive to anyone who watched it crawl. For a second, I think that everyone around me thought the same thing… 'Is this woman really dead?'_

_At the time of her death, her face didn't show anything of fear, or any sign that she was scared. In fact her face showed peace and happiness, that she had seen something nostalgic… What did she see?_

'_As quoted by Yoichi'_

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Nostalgia 

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She came… 

_She grew…_

_She saw, and flew…_

Every night, I woke up from a troubled sleep in which Sadako had come to me… Calling me her mother… I didn't understand what was happening to me but I always felt the darkness of Sadako, pleading with me to take her with me…

Maybe I was Shizuko in these dreams. Maybe I was imagining the one time that Shizuko had left her daughter behind with her cousin. Maybe this was so… But it wasn't, because in these dreams, I was in the well and I was holding Sadako to me, she was a skull… Crying the grudged water from sockets that would have been her eyes. I was holding her, telling her she was free now… But then she'd grab me with her arms…

I'd look down and see that Sadako wasn't a skull… but a really life girl of nineteen… She was crying and telling me, _'Reiko… be my mother…' _

I'd wake up with a cold sweat and gasping for breath, every time I'd wake up… I'd be wet and soaked with well water. I knew it was well water, I knew that I must have been there. After being in there, scratching around for Sadako's remains. The smell was so clear. The smell of death and rotting flesh… I couldn't stand it…

I was really there. I was in the well with Sadako. She had taken me to the well in my sleeping form. Why?

_Did she want me?_

_Did she want to own me?_

Every time I'd wake up, I'd look over to Yoichi and make sure he was okay, that he was still with me… In my dreams, when I don't dream of the well, I dream of a better place where I did the right thing. I dreamt that Ryuji was still alive and my father was still alive. I could wake up in the morning and they'd just be a phone call away.

My darling little Yoichi, how you've suffered… 

If I lost my only treasure, my little Yo-chan, I would kill myself. I couldn't go on living without my Yoichi, my little _positive one_. All my life, ever since I first saw him… I love him more then anyone or anything in this entire world. I'd do anything, I'd give up my own life, my own salvation to make sure that my son was safe. Words can't describe how much I love him, and will do anything to keep him safe.

If you haven't got children, or even if you're a man, you can't understand the love and desire to protect your child against everything that might threaten him or her. It's a chemical feeling, is what my father used to say. It is an emotion that only a woman can feel for her child, the feeling of motherhood.

The smell of the child, the feel of them, their voice, their laugh and their hug against their mother… Everything feels special and magic when you're a mother. We mothers are the ones who carried the special little treasure in your womb, with the greatest care and you neutered them within your body.

If the police were to find Yoichi and I, they'd take him away from me. I know they would. I couldn't bare that. They'd take him and experiment on him… Lock him away from me… Torment him day and night… Treat him like some guinea pig!

They'd treat him like people used to always treat Ryuji… They'd look on him as weird rather then wonderful, as freak rather then special and as a monster rather then a little angel. My son is magical, and despite his difference, he will one day learn to control them. If they take Yoichi, he will be treated as if he were an animal subject, just because he's different…

Not my little Yoichi… Will I be here to protect you for any longer? After all, if what Ryuji said was true, I will be dead soon anyway.

_I don't want to die…_

_I can't leave my darling alone in the world…_

Sometimes in these dreams, I'm in the well and I look up. Ryuji's there looking down on me from the moonlit well, like Ikuma has looked down on Sadako. As if he'd pushed me down the well, as if he had betrayed me in some way. I don't understand how, but there he is, looking down on me.

Last time I had that dream, he said in a distant voice… _Forgive me. Forgive me, Asakawa._

What for, why don't you tell me?

"_Don't worry, Ms. Asakawa" Takano said as she left, "I won't tell them where you are"._

I prayed she wouldn't. All hell would break lose if she did, the police would come and put me under questioning. I know they blame me for Ryuji's death… I know that Mai thinks that way too… Everyone thinks I murdered all these people...

_I'm innocent! I didn't kill anyone…_

Or did I? Was it all my fault that Ryuji died? I mean he didn't need to watch the video. He did it willingly! Still… I copied the videotape and gave it to him… I did kill him! I was the one who watched the videotape in the first place, if I hadn't have watched it, then maybe Ryuji would still be alive. Maybe we never would have known about Sadako… Maybe, things would have been different…

It's me who should be saying sorry… 

Ryuji was such a special and good-hearted person. He didn't deserve to die. People saw him as a freak too… They looked at him strangely and they started at him as he walked by them, just because he's different. There was nothing freakish about him and there was nothing wrong with him. I never found either Ryuji or Yoichi strange. They're special, if you ask me. Very special…

Maybe it was because I have powers too… 

Ryuji… he gave me everything! He gave me the courage to leave home when I finished high school and go collage in Tokyo. He saved me, in every way a person can be saved. His friendly smile, his terrible jokes and his touching personality survived here in my memories. There must have been something, something inside Ryuji before he died that made him so dark and sad. Like Yoichi is now. If only the police weren't searching for me, if only… it only…

Why do these dreams keep coming? 

_Why does Sadako still come to me?_

_What is this feeling inside me?_

Ever since Ryuji died, I've felt different. I don't understand what's happening to me… Is this death that I've been waiting for? I can feel something. There are people or things watching me. As if the Grim Reaper has me marked as next. Someone is calling me to their side. That place in heaven is waiting for me and they stand in the light, waiting for me to come down the line towards them.

_I can't die!_ I can't leave Yoichi, not all alone in the world… It's like, when I touched Sadako in the well, something climbed inside me and buried itself down into me. So far that I couldn't even begin to think how far it is.

Sometimes, I even forget who I am… These days while I watch Yoichi playing with that Takano girl, I can feel pure darkness in Yoichi's heart. This is just what Ryuji and I tried to protect him from…

_We failed…_

Who am I? What's happening to me? I know my name is Reiko Asakawa, but what is happening to me? Why is the darkness spreading through me too…? Did it really come from Sadako? Is the darkness the thing that brings her to me? Is it that evil that I took from her inside me now… Growing like a virus, like bacteria…

Like a baby…

-

_A child?_

That's what Ai-sama said… When I was eighteen, I went to see her with Ryuji. When we were alone, she touched me and told me that I would end up like this. She had pleaded with me to leave it alone, but my life was already on the path that Hiroko had seen. Ai-sama then told me these words that only seem to echo with me now…

"_How has your health been? I hope it has been okay. Too much water play, will bring you no good. To stare at the sea too long, it'll draw you in and you will die. Now listen to Granny. You are giving birth next year…"_

"Giving birth?"

At nineteen, a year after Ai-sama said those words; I gave birth to Yoichi… I couldn't believe my love for him. I adored him more then anything else in this entire world. All ever wanted to do was be with him, to be the best mother I could be to him. But, Ai-sama had said something else about my birth…

"_This child is your destiny. Hiroko had said so… This child will bring nothing but trouble to for you both. He will bring death to Ryuji, to you and to others who cross his path… He will be a cancer among us humans… Us animals…"_

Was what Ai-sama said coming true? After all, it was only years after that I realised that Hiroko's prediction on me was true too. At my birth, she told my mother that…

"_She will carry a part of me… Long after I am dead."_

I barely remember Hiroko. She killed herself when I was three. I remember feeling her die, and I remember hanging objects that Ryuji blocked me from seeing. That hanging object was Hiroko. She was dead. She has been long dead now… But what she's said is true. I have carried around a part of her years after her death. It wasn't an illness, powers or any object of any kind. It was a baby. It was Yoichi whom she was talking about. After all, Hiroko was Ryuji's mother, and Ryuji is Yoichi's father. They carry the same genes inside them. I carried around a part of Ryuji, and any part of him is also a part of Hiroko.

_But have I really given birth to a monster…?_

They called Shizuko a monster and it drove her mad. They called Sadako a monster and she's become the true cancer of this world, not Yoichi. She kills everyone who crosses her path. I've crossed that line to far and all I can do is hide now. But she'll find me. She'll always find me in the end. Someone will sell me out to Sadako. Then I'll die.

Cancer, smallpox, viruses… All of those things fight for survival when they are in our bodies, they have the desire to live and they cling onto our bodies and they won't let go, until they have destroyed you, made you weak and then they move on to the next person. Ryuji used to say that people like us were the true cancer of the Earth.

But if I'm a cancer, why do I have a secret wish to join him in death? 

I want to live for Yoichi but living has become a painful task of mine. One I don't want to live me out. I want to die, but I don't want to die. It's driving me mad.

What's happening to me really? It's like my energy is starting to fade away, and my powers are leaving my body, leaving and going towards the darkness… Still, Yoichi's power is turning him into another Sadako, other people who have seen the video and lived have gone mad and Takano developed powers of her own…

What's happening to me? Why is it different for me then everyone? I saw the video. I've seen the bodies of those who have died from the virus. Yet I haven't gone mad, nor have I been effected like others who have seen the dead. What's happening to me? Is it that Sadako didn't infect me with darkness but rather I impregnated Sadako's curse in a different way?

_I was the one who wanted to help her. I was the one who showed her love in that well… Sadako appeared to me because I wanted to find her. I wanted to help her and she knew that. Of course! I remember now. When I touched Sadako, I felt something from her force it's way into my body…_

_It wasn't a virus, but it was alive. It crawled inside me and hid in the safest place in my body. _

_My uterus…_

My womb was carrying around the darkness and Sadako was growing inside me… Playing with my mind and my feelings. She's tapping into Yoichi and Takano and myself… She's here, inside me! I'm her second birth mother… I'm carrying the evil Sadako…

Sadako knows that I'm already a mother. She knew that when Ryuji felt her coming three years ago. She knew that I was a capable body to carry her evil inside. The womb is the safest place inside a woman. It carries the child for nine months, nurtures it and keeps it safe and warm. Sadako is sharing the same part of my body that I nurtured Yoichi in.

But aren't the people who watch the tape and copy it saved? It did save Yoichi… But rather then dying, he's falling into darkness. It's saved me, but Sadako is growing inside me. Rather then going to the mind like with Tomoko, Masami, Takano and… Yoichi, it was inside me all along, in my uterus. Sadako appeared behind me and only me after the video ended. Her eyes were burning into me, waiting for me to conceive her…

_Why not Takano?_

_Why not another woman… Tomoko, all of them who could have carried Sadako in their bodies..._

But wait… 

I'm different from them. I've created life in my body before. I've given birth to a child. I gave life to someone else. Takano hasn't. Tomoko hadn't. That girl hadn't. None of the other high school girls have who died from the tape had. It's only me who has ever completed the full task of womanhood…

_To join herself with a man, and to bare a child…_

That's why Sadako wants to use me as her home. She wants me because she knows my body can create children. Just like her mother, I am a safe body for her to stay in. To live in until she had taken over me and killed me…

As I sit in this room, thinking about everything that's happened, I wonder if I'll ever be able live on, forget about the power of Sadako and feel free of my mind. I know it'll never happen now. Not with Sadako living inside me, waiting to break free.

That policeman, he thinks I did it. He thinks I did all of this, the deaths of all these people… But it wasn't me. It was there own minds that drew them towards the video. Like it drew me. I was so tempted to watch the videotape. You're given a video. You always watch it. You can't fight the temptation, can you? You can't help it. You have to know what's on the tape! Sadako yarns you to watch her videotape…

_But why…_

_Why does she do this?_

_Killing innocent lives, and destroying them…_

My life isn't as pure and beautiful as some may think it to be. I've been called many names in my hometown. I married Ryuji when I was seventeen. Became pregnant with Yoichi at nineteen. I automatically became the town whore. No man with a wife was allowed near me. When I walked passed people in the streets, feeling the lump of my belly, they'd turn and whisper painful rumours about me. Saying that the child was a product of pure nothingness that Ryuji only ever really wanted to be with me was because I was a younger then other girls.

He used to date my sister, Shizuka (whom we all called Shizu), but he dumped her a few weeks after we started seeing each other. Back then of course, Ryuji was my tutor for maths. The teacher I had wouldn't move me down a class and made joy of picking on me in class. It used to make me so sad. My father and Ryuji's father wanted to push Ryuji and my sister together, and to make Ryuji stay at our house more and more, they decided that he should tutor me. It wasn't only because he was good maths.

I found myself falling for him quite quickly. I'd liked him before then, but only in the way a girl does for her older brother's friend. I never for one minute thought of stealing Ryuji away from my sister. After all, back then I noticed the age difference. I knew that Ryuji wouldn't give me a second look, or would he? I tried to fight temptations to find out. Still, loads of boys asked me out, and I found myself going with them, just to see if my feelings for Ryuji would just go away.

I forgot about them very quickly when I realised there was no change in my feelings, and besides, Ryuji was acting very strangely, especially after my sixteenth birthday. Whenever my mum asked if I had a boyfriend, and Ryuji and my sister were present, I'd see Ryuji scowl and frown whenever I answered.

When we finally admitted our feelings, we knew we couldn't tell our families. After all, I was ten years younger then him and my mother frowned on young girls and older boys. Shizu knew that he had to be seeing someone else and wouldn't quit till she found out who. It was never safe to be together any more around her as every woman was a suspect with her.

_Those were the most worrying moments of my life…_

Now I look back on these memories within memories. All of these moments were remembered when I was younger, as I felt Yoichi growing slowly in my womb. I suffered from many memories that were not wonderful. However, when I felt happy, I'd remember the good times. Despite the fact that it was a hard time of my life, I always remembered how happy I was and how much I felt it was worth it…

_If I had never been through all of that, the child growing inside me wouldn't be there…_

I even thought about getting rid of it, cause that's what he was to be once, it. It was an alien that had invaded my body, like a virus, it had passed from him to me. I seriously did think of getting rid of him. I'm disgusted with that fact, but it's true. I thought I could get rid of the baby, so quickly, he'd be gone, and Ryuji would never need to know I did it. I was such a silly kid then… But I did do everything I could to try not to get pregnant. Everything I could… But yet it still happened…

_I was devastated…_

I couldn't believe that someone was alive inside my body. I didn't look at him as life to start off with. He was just 'it'. It was an alien inside my body. I was scared. I was only nineteen! I was still just a kid myself and I didn't want a child yet! One day in the future when I was older, at least twenty-four! Not while I was still a kid…

_I went as far as going to the clinic…_

_That way, it would be gone and Ryuji would never know it had happened… would he?_

At the last moment however, I watched as a woman who I was to follow came out. Her face was pale and her eyes were swollen and red. I looked at her and I knew that the death of her baby, the fact that the child was dead had done that to her. For a second, I remembered how much trouble I went to not being pregnant, and then still, there I was. A child inside my womb…

_Was this destiny…?_

I found myself screaming and running out of the centre… Ai-sama's words came to my mind. I would give birth to a child next year. Hiroko's words were ringing in my head. ESP, sixth sense, foresight… All of it was something that we all had in common. This child was a product of destiny and it was staying where it belonged…

_Inside my body…_

No innocent life would be ripped away from me and nothing in the world would take the child away from me…

My little Yoichi… I'm walking in a world that will no longer include you. My death is so close and yet I can't see it's coming for me. My want to always protect you till the end will end soon… Soon you will have to rely on the kindness of the people around you. But remember this from me…

_Never allow them to destroy you… There is nothing wrong with you're fighting and I want you to do everything in your power to keep living. Your life is the thing that dad and I died for. What your grandfather died for. It was all for you, Yoichi. Don't forget what we did for you, and what others will die to do for you._

_You are the chosen one…_

_You're not a monster…_

_But one day you will be a God on Earth…_

_You will destroy Sadako…_

_And in result… Avenge the deaths of those whom you loved…_

No! I don't want to die… But I know it's coming… I want to live! But it's my death. My father is here with me, so I must be on my way to death. I feel like there is a burning light, grasping into my body. I feel so much pain…

_She's come…_

_She's seen it all…_

_She's grown…_

And she's flown… I feel a ripping coming from my body. Something in pulling it's way out of my skin. Sadako's ghost, body or image is pulling her way out of me. She's breaking free from me. As if I were a cocoon and she was the butterfly. I was the shell and she was the core. It felt a little like when I gave birth to Yoichi. For a second, I even thought the 'thing' that was ripping away from me was Yoichi…

But I knew it wasn't…

A sudden realise from the pressure from the lower part of my body leaves, and a child, rips away from me. I'm not sure if the child was physically there, but something tells me that Sadako has moved away from me, and I was free.

_I free so light…_

_Like there is something holding me down…_

_Not even the gravity…_

_There's a light…_

The light is coming towards me, and getting brighter and brighter. As I look into it, I see myself, in a place where I know. The smell of blood was sweet, not terrible and I was in a great deal of pain. The most pain I've ever been in.

The day I had Yoichi…

The pains that went so quickly and the cries of him are still there in the back of my head. I can hear them. I created another life. No matter what others thought, he was my child. I knew that from the moment I saw you, I loved you more then anything else in this entire world. My darling son and my Yo-chan…

_Yoichi…_

That's what we both agreed to call you. It was a favourite name of ours for such along time. Still, even now, you're still our little Yo-chan. My dearest son…

_I have to save Yoichi…_

This is the only image I see in my head, but my eyes see the light still. The figure of someone I know very well is there. I can feel them calling my name. Holding out their hand for mine. Waiting for me at that gate that we'll all cross one day. Suddenly… Dying isn't as scary anymore… I feel happy, dying knowing that the person I see is there. I'm happy my final thoughts are of my first thoughts of Yoichi…

_Then, I remember the other person in my life that I love dearly… _

_Who means the world to me…_

_You promised me… Didn't you? I made you promise not that long ago…_

I made you promise that you'd stay with me when I died… You kept your word… You waited for me… And you're waiting right now. I can feel my eyes closing as something seems to hit me. My limp body has been destroyed, cast away like a cocoon. While my mind is still alive, my body is destroyed from under me. The body that had kept both Yoichi and Sadako so warm and safe. My physical self was dead.

_I feel no pain though…_

Someone's hand takes mine… And takes me into the light… The voice whispers these words to me. Nostalgia is a strange thing… But I love it, if it kept you with me. As your voice whispers that we'll never have to worry again, I know everything will be fine.

But don't forget about the other promise you made to me… Don't forget, even though our physical powers are gone. Promise me that you'll keep your word…

_Stay with Yoichi… You'll be okay, Ryuji. _

_Stay with Yoichi and save him!_

-

-

Thank you for reading. I was updating these chapters to make them better cause I wasn't happy with the original story. I think I might replace Confessions again. It's still not perfect. Anyway, please review this. Hope you like it. If you don't like it then go away cause I'm not in the mood for the grumpy today. It's bad enough I have the web site to deal with, let alone asking for a cup of tea every ten minutes…

Anyway, like I said, review! Thanks!


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